Sunday, April 6, 2014

YOUR MONEY SPEAKS EVEN WHEN YOU HAVE LOST YOUR VOICE

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Jeff Jacoby

Money in politics? McCutcheon's foes don't always say no

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
April 6, 2014

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/14628/money-in-politics-mccutcheon-foes-dont-always-say

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TRADITIONAL LIBERALS should be cheering the Supreme Court's decision last week in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, which reaffirmed a value at the heart of the First Amendment: The best response to unwelcome or controversial political speech is more political speech. Democratic self-government depends on the right to participate in advocacy and debate, and the Constitution reserves some of its strongest language to support of citizens who choose to exercise that right: "Congress shall make no law" abridging it.

Protesters rally outside the Supreme Court during the oral argument in McCutcheon v. FEC. Though groups opposing the influence of money in politics denounced the court's ruling, many readily accept unlimited contributions themselves.

But much of the reaction from the left to McCutcheon, which threw out the aggregate cap on how much money an individual can contribute to federal candidates or party committees in a given election cycle, has been apoplectic. The ruling didn't alter the maximum contribution that can be given to any candidate ($2,600 for each primary or general election), but by striking down the overall ceiling, it restored the right of Americans to support as many candidates as they wish.
Yet instead of celebrating this expansion of liberty, many liberals bewail it.
"Make no mistake: This decision is a setback for our freedoms," lamented Montana Senator Jon Tester. On Twitter, his Vermont colleague Bernie Sanders issued a stream of overwrought comments. "The Supreme Court," read one, "is paving the way toward an oligarchic form of society in which a handful of billionaires like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson will control our political process." Common Cause pronounced McCutcheon "A Disaster for Democracy," and accused the court of putting out "a welcome mat for corruption."
A similar keening followed the high court's Citizens United ruling four years ago. That decision restored the traditional First Amendment right of corporations and labor unions to engage in independent political expenditures, and liberal critics shrieked that democracy as we knew it was finished. Someone who didn't know better might imagine that those dire predictions had come to pass — that determined, deep-pocketed Republicans could indeed now buy American elections at will.
Except that nothing of the kind happened. Citizens United notwithstanding, President Obama was easily reelected. Democrats didn't lose their Senate majority. "American Crossroads, the super PAC founded by Karl Rove, spent $104 million in the general election, but none of its candidates won," gloated The New York Times in an editorial following the 2012 election. "Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul, spent $53 million on nine Republican candidates, eight of whom lost."
Money is indispensable in politics, but dollars don't vote. Thanks to Citizens United and now McCutcheon, more candidates have more funds to run even more ads promoting their ideas and criticizing their opponents. Yet no matter how often candidates assure us that they "approve this message," voters, who get the last word, are free to disapprove.
The fulminating against Mammon and its wicked influence on American democracy might be more persuasive if the fulminators themselves were careful to shun financial support from well-to-do donors with strong political interests. On a web page bearing the banner "Money Out/Voters In," a coalition of more than 25 activist organizations was encouraging supporters to register at one of the dozens of "McCutcheon Rapid Response" rallies scheduled around the country immediately after the decision was announced. "Get Big Money Out of Politics," urge the coalition partners, which include Public Citizen, Democracy 21, People for the American Way, MoveOn.org, Common Cause, and The Sunlight Foundation, among others.
Most of those organizations are not only glad to accept financial contributions, they openly solicit them — many feature a bright red "DONATE" button on their own website's home page. Would-be donors aren't cautioned not to give more than $2,600 per year — the maximum that any individual can give to a federal candidate. On the contrary, the donation forms are typically set up so that supporters can donate any amount they wish, just as they can donate to as many different activist groups as they wish.
Alabama businessman Shaun McCutcheon went to court because he wished to donate $1,776 to 28 different candidates, and an arbitrary campaign-finance cap stood in his way. It is no more a "disaster for democracy" that the First Amendment protects McCutcheon's freedom to make those donations than the fact that the same First Amendment protects the right of other Americans to donate to Common Cause or Democracy 21. There are many honorable ways to contribute to the nation's political discourse, to advocate for better government, or to try to shape the electoral agenda. The First Amendment protects them all. "The more speech, the better" is an American ideal, and liberals used to be the first to say so.
(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).

Sunday, March 9, 2014

"I CANNOT WAIT TO GET THE ORDER TO KICK YOUR DOOR IN"

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CT Cop to Gun Owning Patriot: "I Cannot Wait to Get the Order to Kick Your Door In"

March 9, 2014

CT Cop to Gun Owning Patriot: "I Cannot Wait to Get the Order to Kick Your Door In"
Posted on March 9, 2014 by visiontoamerica

Last weekend, I reported on Connecticut John Cinque’s 2013 warning to lawmakers that he would not comply with their attempts to force the citizens of Connecticut to register their semi-automatic weapons and high capacity magazines. Since that time, the video, though a year old, has gone viral. However, in a recent video between Mr. Cinque and Connecticut gubernatorial candidate Joe Visconti, Cinque reveals that a Branford, Connecticut police officer told him, “I Cannot Wait to Get the Order to Kick Your Door In.”
Cinque was explaining last year’s account to Visconti. Specifically he referenced a phone conversation with Connecticut State Representative David Yaccarino. In that questioning, Cinque said that the thing that really stuck with him was the fact that when he asked Yaccarino why there was a Second Amendment, he responded that it was put in place so that the Colonists could attack the British. No, seriously, that is what was said. Never mind that the Second Amendment was written long after the Revolutionary War.

Read more at http://visiontoamerica.com/16944/ct-cop-to-gun-owning-patriot-i-cannot-wait-to-get-the-order-to-kick-your-door-in/#ZpU3LTpCLei6MwB1.99

CT Cop to Gun Owning Patriot: "I Cannot Wait to Get the Order to Kick Your Door In"

Posted on March 9, 2014 by visiontoamerica — 72 Comments ↓

Last weekend, I reported on Connecticut John Cinque’s 2013 warning to lawmakers that he would not comply with their attempts to force the citizens of Connecticut to register their semi-automatic weapons and high capacity magazines. Since that time, the video, though a year old, has gone viral. However, in a recent video between Mr. Cinque and Connecticut gubernatorial candidate Joe Visconti, Cinque reveals that a Branford, Connecticut police officer told him, “I Cannot Wait to Get the Order to Kick Your Door In.”
Cinque was explaining last year’s account to Visconti. Specifically he referenced a phone conversation with Connecticut State Representative David Yaccarino. In that questioning, Cinque said that the thing that really stuck with him was the fact that when he asked Yaccarino why there was a Second Amendment, he responded that it was put in place so that the Colonists could attack the British. No, seriously, that is what was said. Never mind that the Second Amendment was written long after the Revolutionary War.

CT Cop to Gun Owning Patriot: "I Cannot Wait to Get the Order to Kick Your Door In"

Posted on March 9, 2014 by visiontoamerica — 72 Comments ↓

CT Cop to Gun Owning Patriot: "I Cannot Wait to Get the Order to Kick Your Door In"

Posted on March 9, 2014 by visiontoamerica — 72 Comments ↓

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

WHERE THERE ARE MORE GUNS THERE IS LESS CRIME, BUT LIBERALS ARE TOO DUMB TO UNDERSTAND

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Jersey City police release images of man who robbed taxi driver:

More Guns, Less Crime

By JASON L. RILEY

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE

A new FBI report says that violent crime continues to fall nationwide, which might annoy liberals because gun purchases continue to rise.

In the first six months of 2013, murders fell by nearly 7 percent, compared with the same period in 2012. Aggravated assaults fell by 6.6 percent, and robberies are down 1.8 percent. "All of the offenses in the violent crime category—murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, and robbery—showed decreases when data from the first six months of 2013 were compared with data from the first six months of 2012," according to the FBI. Overall, violent crime in the U.S. fell by 5.4 percent. Burglaries, larceny and auto thefts also decreased.

The left likes to link violent crime to the proliferation of guns in the country, so it's worth noting that the crime reductions described in the FBI report correlate with a steady increase in firearm sales. "Gun records checks, fueled by a post-Newtown boom of gun sales, hit a new high in 2013, and industry analysts expect ammunition to be the big seller this year as consumers catch up to all of those firearms purchases," reported the Washington Times last month. "More than 21 million applications were run through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System last year, marking nearly an 8 percent increase and the 11th straight year that the number has risen."

It's also worth noting that gun-ownership rates in the Midwest (39 percent) and South (50 percent) far exceed gun-ownership rates in the Northeast (22 percent), yet violent crime is down more in the Midwest and South than it is in the Northeast, according to the FBI statistics. And rural areas, where gun-ownership rates also are higher than average, saw a larger reduction in violent crime that metropolitan areas, where gun-ownership rates are lower than average.

Not that gun-control zealots, who are so certain of a causal link between firearms and violent crime rates, care about such details.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

FANTASY ISLAND REVISITED

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On Thursday, February 13, 2014 1:26 PM, Warren <wavery@prometheandatasolutions.com> wrote:

Sunday, February 9, 2014

NATURE IS MORE RESPONSIBLE FOR 'GLOBAL WARMING' THAN WE ARE

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By Joseph Stromberg
smithsonianmag.com
February 4, 2014

Over the past month, the web has come alive with French photographer Olivier Grunewald's spectacular photos of Indonesia's Kawah Ijen volcano. Snapped during shooting of a new documentary he's releasing with the president of Geneva's Society for Volcanology, Régis Etienne, the photos—taken without the aid of any filter or digital enhancement—showcase the volcano's amazing electric blue glow.
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Little of the web coverage, though, has enlightened readers on the scientific principles at work. "This blue glow, unusual for a volcano, isn't the lava itself, as unfortunately can be read on many websites," Grunewald says. "It is due to the combustion of sulfuric gases in contact with air at temperatures above 360°C."
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In other words, the lava—molten rock that emerges from the Earth at ultra-high temperatures—isn't colored significantly differently than the lava at other volcanoes, which all differ slightly based on their mineral composition but appear a bright red or orange color in their molten state. But at Kawah Ijen, extremely high quantities of sulfuric gases emerge at high pressures and temperatures (sometimes in excess of 600°C) along with the lava.
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Exposed to the oxygen present in air and sparked by lava, the sulfur burns readily, and its flames are bright blue. There's so much sulfur, Grunewald says, that at times it flows down the rock face as it burns, making it seem as though blue lava is spilling down the mountainside. But because only the flames are blue, rather than the lava itself, the effect is only visible at night—during daytime, the volcano looks like roughly any other.
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"The vision of these flames at night is strange and extraordinary," Grunewald says. "After several nights in the crater, we felt really living on another planet."
Grunewald first heard about the phenomenon from Etienne, who visited the volcano in 2008 with an Indonesian guide. After being shown Etienne's photo featuring a child miner's silhouette surrounded by the blue glow, he was struck by the idea of photographing the mountain's sulfur miners working at night.
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These miners extract sulfuric rock—formed after the blue flames have gone out and the sulfur gas has cooled and combined with the lava to form solidified rock—for use in the food and chemical industries. "To double their meager income, the hardiest of these men work nights, by the electric blue light of the sulfuric acid exhaled by the volcano," Grunewald says. Some of the workers are children, seeking to support their families by any means possible.
They carry rock-filled baskets by hand down the mountain, selling it for about 680 Indonesian rupiahs per kilogram, the equivalent of about six cents. In a country where the median daily income is about $13, many work overnight to supplement their income. Grunewald estimates that these nighttime miners can mine and carry between 80 to 100 kilos over the course of twelve hours of work—about $5 to $6.
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Grunewald and Etienne produced the documentary partly to bring attention to these harsh working conditions. Most of the miners do not have gas masks (which the photographers wore throughout shooting and distributed to miners afterward), and suffer from health problems due to prolonged exposure to sulfur dioxide and other toxic gases.
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Shooting these striking photos—some taken just a few feet away from the flames—was far more physically demanding than most of Grunewald's previous projects of landscapes and wildlife. "The main problem was the acidic gases that whirled constantly in the crater," he says. "The night seriously increased the difficulty as well, because it became almost impossible to see when dense gases arrived—at times, we were stuck in gas plumes for over an hour without being able to see our hands."
Just 30 nights in the crater, distributed over six trips, were enough to show Grunewald how destructive the environment of these mines can be. "During my first trip, I lost a camera and two lenses that had been corroded by acid," he says. "After we got back home, it took up to three weeks for our skin to lose the smell of sulfur."
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His photos make the blue flames appear dramatically beautiful, even surreal. But for the miners that spend months or years at the volcano, the sulfur dioxide is quite real, and the health effects of chronic exposure—throat and lung irritation, difficulty breathing and a propensity for lung disease—can be devastating.
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Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-does-indonesian-volcano-burn-bright-blue-180949576/#ixzz2srvJQE6A
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Sunday, February 2, 2014

SURPRISE: SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY OF VIETNAM FAME IS PERPLEXED

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'Leading from behind' to a new world disorder

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
February 2, 2014

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/14377/leading-from-behind-to-a-new-world-disorder

"I MUST SAY I am perplexed," John Kerry told grandees at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, "by claims … that somehow America is disengaging from the world — this myth that we are pulling back or giving up or standing down." The secretary of state, whose website keeps a running tally of the miles he has flown since taking the job (320,961 as of Friday), insisted that nothing could be further from the truth.
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John Kerry gazes at the Swiss Alps during a helicopter ride from Davos to Zurich on Jan. 25. According to the running tally on the State Department website, Kerry has flown 320,961 miles since becoming secretary of state a year ago.

"The only person more surprised than I am by the myth of this disengagement," he said, "is the Air Force pilot who flies the secretary of state's plane."
I must say I would be perplexed if I thought Kerry were truly perplexed. For at the start of the sixth year of Barack Obama's presidency, the United States is indisputably less influential, less esteemed, and less assertive than it was on Jan. 20, 2009. America remains the world's great military and cultural superpower, but anyone can see that its profile on the international stage has been deliberately reduced.
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Kerry is certainly a hard worker. He keeps busy; he racks up the miles. But busyness is not effectiveness. It is no myth that US foreign policy in recent years has been premised on the conviction that Washington must intervene less and be constrained more. The Obama administration may call this "leading from behind" or "pressing the reset button" or having "more flexibility." It may praise itself for recognizing that there are "Good Reasons to be Humble," as Princeton's Anne-Marie Slaughter — who would later be tapped by Obama as the State Department's director of policy planning — argued in a 2008 essay. The world sees it as retreat, and reacts accordingly.
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To be fair, this is what many Americans say they want. In a Pew opinion survey released in December, 52 percent of respondents endorsed the view that "the US should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own." Pew has been measuring public backing for that view since 1964. Never before has it commanded majority support.
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But a more modest and deferential America has become a less respected America. Power, too, abhors a vacuum. As the United States has backed away from the world's danger zones, its enemies have grown more brazen and aggressive. When Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad crossed Obama's explicit "red line" on chemical weapons last year, the president and his secretary of state issued fierce threats — and then didn't carry them out. Damascus gloated at the time over a "historic American retreat." Five months later, the Assad regime is more entrenched than it was, and has found fresh ways to slaughter and terrorize its victims.
Obama came to office promising to pull all US forces from Iraq — a promise he fulfilled with the assurance that it would "strengthen American leadership around the world." But having failed to renegotiate a status-of-forces agreement that would allow at least some US troops to remain, Washington's leverage in Iraq evaporated. Result? With America's pacifying influence gone, al-Qaeda and its allies are on the march, not only detonating car bombs and recapturing cities like Fallujah that the US "surge" helped liberate, but expanding their mayhem over Iraq's borders into Syria and Lebanon as well.
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Al-Qaeda and its allies, no longer restrained by a pacifying US presence in Iraq, are again on the march, detonating car bombs and taking control of key cities in Anbar Province, including Fallujah.

What government worries more today about crossing the United States than it did in 2008? Russia under Vladimir Putin doesn't, as it has demonstrated in numerous ways, from granting asylum to Edward Snowden to intimidating Ukraine to harassing US Ambassador Michael McFaul. China doesn't, to judge from its belligerent declaration of an air-defense identification zone over the East China Sea, or its crackdown on American journalists.
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Iran certainly doesn't: In the wake of the interim nuclear deal that Obama and Kerry hail as such a breakthrough, Iran's president cranked up anti-American demonstrations to their shrillest level in years, and calmly boasted on CNN that "not under any circumstances" will a single Iranian centrifuge be dismantled.
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Friends and foes alike look at the United States today and see a powerful nation comfortable with its impotence and — so far, at least — willing to accept the new world disorder that such impotence leads to. We have been here before, and we have always had to learn the hard way that American retreat is not cost-free. Letting other countries "get along the best they can" may sound appealing in the abstract. In the real world, we invariably regret it.
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(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).
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Sunday, January 26, 2014

THE PELOSI AIR FORCE SCANDAL

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Judicial Watch Uncovers New Documents Detailing Pelosi’s Use of Air Force Aircraft

October 14, 2010

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-uncovers-new-documents-detailing-pelosis-use-air-force-aircraft/

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained new documents from the United States Air Force detailing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s repeated use of United States Air Force aircraft. According to the documents, obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Pelosi used Air Force aircraft on 85 flights from March 2009 through June 2010. Members of Pelosi’s family were guests on at least two flights.
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Among the highlights from the documents, obtained pursuant to a FOIA request filed on January 25, 2009:

Pelosi used the Air Force aircraft for a total of 85 trips, covering 206,264 miles, from March 2, 2009 through June 7, 2010. Pelosi, her guests and Air Force personnel logged a total of 428.6 hours on these flights.
Members of Pelosi’s family were guests on at least two flights. On June 20, 2009, Speaker Pelosi’s daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons joined a flight from Andrews Air Force Base to San Francisco International Air Port. That flight included $143 in on-flight expenses for food and other items. On July 2, 2010, Pelosi took her grandson on a flight from Andrews Air Force Base to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, which is northeast of San Francisco.

According to previous documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, the Speaker’s military travel cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over a two-year period — $101,429.14 of which was for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol. For example, purchases for one Pelosi-led congressional delegation traveling from Washington, DC, through Tel Aviv, Israel to Baghdad, Iraq May 15-20, 2008 included: Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Bailey’s Irish Crème, Maker’s Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewar’s scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniels whiskey, Corona beer and several bottles of wine.
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Judicial Watch also previously uncovered internal Department of Defense documents (DOD) email correspondence detailing attempts by DOD staff to accommodate Pelosi’s numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker’s last minute cancellations and changes. For example, in response to a series of requests for military aircraft, one Defense Department official wrote, “Any chance of politely querying [Pelosi's team] if they really intend to do all of these or are they just picking every weekend?…[T]here’s no need to block every weekend ‘just in case’… “The email also notes that Pelosi’s office had, “a history of canceling many of their past requests.”
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“Pelosi’s abusive use of military aircraft demonstrates a shocking lack of regard for the American taxpayer and the men and women who serve in the U.S. Air Force. Speaker Pelosi may have a frequent flyer record for taxpayer-financed luxury jet travel,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

=====================================================================

[A friend writes the following]

USAF TOOK NANCY 'S JET AWAY
(verified by Snopes)

The real reason that Nancy Pelosi is considering retiring is that they took her Jet away.

Ah, poor baby!

As a result of a Judicial Watch filing under the Freedom of Information Act, the USAF released documents detailing House Speaker Pelosi's use of United States Air Force aircraft between March 2009 and June 2010.

The data are published in the Judicial Watch Verdict of December 2010, Volume 16, Issue 12.

Here are the main highlights revealed by the USAF.

Keep in mind that all the data below relate to United States Air Force aircraft used by one woman over a sixteen month period.

Several of these flights included Ms. Pelosi's guests, such as grown children, grandchildren, various in-laws, friends and hangers-on.

Over 95% of the trips were between the west coast and Washington DC , for what you might call a commute between home and the office.

READ it and WEEP!!

Total trips: 85 over a 68 week period, or 1.25 average trips per week.

Total mileage: 206,264 miles, or 2,427 average miles per trip.

Total flying time: 428.6 hours, or an average of 5 hours per trip.

Cost to the taxpayers: $2,100,744, or $27,715 per trip, or $1,285,162 per year!

Cost of in flight food and alcohol: $101,429; $1,193 per trip; $62,051 per year.

On one junket to Baghdad, according to the Air Force report, she had the aircraft bar stocked with Johnny Walker Red Scotch, Grey Goose Vodka, E&J Brandy, Bailey's Irish Cream, Maker's Mark Whiskey, Courvoisier Cognac, Bacardi Rum, Jim Beam Whiskey, Beefeater Gin, Dewar's Scotch, Bombay Sapphire Gin, Jack Daniels Whiskey, Corona Beer and several varieties of wine.

This was obviously a very important "gubment bidness" trip.

Evidence generally speaks for itself, and in Ms. Pelosi's case it speaks the language of abuse and (evidently) a serious familial drinking problem, for in a single year she and her spawn drank an amount in excess of the net income of the average employed American!

When she said, "... If the stimulus doesn't pass, five hundred million people might lose their jobs...", I thought she was unintentionally revealing her ignorance.

I'm now more inclined to think she was pickled.

Even though she can no longer abuse the USAF, she can either fly on her broom, or fly Southwest Airlines, where bags fly free.

If you are an AMERICAN citizen it is YOUR DUTY to PASS THIS ON...

Because, you won't see this reported on MSNBC, or ANY Liberal mis-INFORMATION Station .

Backup Proof Below:

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-uncovers-new-documents-detailing-pelosis-use-air-force-aircraft/

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

WHAT A FUNERAL: THE TRANSLATOR RUBS HIS BELLY WHILE OBAMA MAKES OUT WITH THE SWEDISH PRIME MINISTER

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Obama makes out with Helle Thorning-Schmidt while Michelle glares.

Opinion

Mark Steyn: Low comedy amid soaring rhetoric

by MARK STEYN

Syndicated columnist

Published: Dec. 13, 2013 Updated: 1:45 p.m.

“I don’t want to be emotional but this is one of the greatest moments of my life,” declared Nelson Mandela upon meeting the Spice Girls in 1997. So I like to think he would have appreciated the livelier aspects of his funeral observances. The Prince of Wales, who was also present on that occasion in Johannesburg, agreed with Mandela on the significance of their summit with the girls: “It is the second greatest moment in my life,” he said. “The greatest was when I met them the first time.” His Royal Highness and at least two Spice Girls (reports are unclear) attended this week’s service in Soweto, and I’m sure it was at least the third-greatest moment in all of their lives. Don’t ask me where the other Spice Girls were. It is a melancholy reflection that the Spice Girls’ delegation was half the size of Canada’s, which flew in no fewer than four Canadian prime ministers, which is rather more Canadian prime ministers than one normally needs to make the party go with a swing.
But the star of the show was undoubtedly Thamsanqa Jantjie, the sign-language interpreter who stood alongside the world’s leaders and translated their eulogies for the deaf. Unfortunately, he translated them into total gibberish, reduced by the time of President Obama’s appearance to making random hand gestures, as who has not felt the urge to do during the great man’s speeches. Mr. Jantjie has now pleaded in mitigation that he was having a sudden hallucination because he is a violent schizophrenic. It has not been established whether he is, in fact, a violent schizophrenic, or, as with his claim to be a sign-language interpreter, merely purporting to be one. Asked how often he has been violent, he replied, somewhat cryptically, “A lot.”
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Still, South African officials are furiously pointing fingers (appropriately enough) to account for how he wound up on stage. “I do not think he was just picked up off the street. He was from a school for the deaf,” Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, the Deputy Minister for Persons with Disability, assured the press. But the Deaf Federation of South Africa said it had previously complained about his nonsensical signing after an event last year. Mr. Jantjie was paid a grand total of $85 for his simultaneous translation of the speeches of the U.N. secretary-general, six presidents, the head of the African Union and a dozen other dignitaries. Ms. Bogopane-Zulu notes that the going rate for signing in South Africa is $125 to $165. So she thinks a junior official may simply have awarded the contract to the lowest bid.
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That would never happen in Washington, of course. But how heartening, as one watches the viral video of Obama droning on while, a mere foot-and-a-half away, Mr. Jantjie rubs his belly and tickles his ear, to think that the White House’s usual money-no-object security operation went to the trouble of flying in Air Force One, plus the “decoy” Air Force One, plus support aircraft, plus the 120-vehicle motorcade or whatever it’s up to by now, plus a bazillion Secret Service agents with reflector shades and telephone wire dangling from their ears, to shepherd POTUS into the secured venue and then stand him on stage next to an $85-a-day violent schizophrenic. In the movie version – “In The Sign Of Fire” – grizzled maverick Clint Eastwood will be the only guy to figure it out at the last minute and hurl himself at John Malkovich, as they roll into the orchestra pit with Malkovich furiously signing “Ow!” and “Eek!” But in real life I expect they’ll just double the motorcade to 240 vehicles and order up even more expensive reflector shades.
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Also pondering security issues was Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He returned home from the service to find that, while he’d been out hailing Mandela as the father of the new South Africa, his house had been burgled. One suspects that Mr. Mandela, for whom a little of the garrulous archbishop went an awful long way, would have enjoyed this rather more than he ought. Speaking of enjoying themselves, back in the VIP seats President Obama, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and British Prime Minister David Cameron carried on like Harry, Hermione and Ron, snogging in the back row during the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup presentation. As the three leaders demonstrated their hands-on approach, Michelle Obama glowered straight ahead, as stony and merciless as the 15-foot statue of apartheid architect Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd that once stood guard outside the government offices of the Orange Free State. Eventually, weary of the trilateral smooching, the First Lady switched seats and inserted herself between Barack and the vivacious Helle. How poignant that, on a day to celebrate the post-racial South Africa, the handsome young black man should have to be forcibly segregated from the cool Aryan blonde. For all the progress, as Obama himself pointed out, “our work is not yet done.”
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Amidst all the jollity, one man was taking things awfully seriously. Ted Cruz ducked out of the service when Raul Castro rose to speak. I confess I’m not quite sure about the etiquette of walking out during a funeral. Unlike Sen. Cruz, whom I doubt Mandela had even heard of, the Castros were old friends. It seems a little churlish to show up at the funeral of a longtime communist and complain that they’ve booked the president of Cuba. It would be like attending Obama’s funeral and complaining that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is officiating, and Bill Ayers is singing “How Great Thou Art.” Surely, Cruz could have done what Obama and Cameron did during the longueurs and found a Scandinavian prime minister to make out with.
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Alas, far from the face-pulling selfies, Mandela jokes are no laughing matter. Simon Amstell (who appears to be a comedian in the same sense that Thamsanqa Jantjie is a sign-language interpreter) visited BBC Radio and quipped that “it’s so white in here Mandela would not approve.” Shortly thereafter, the host apologized on air lest anyone was offended. Which they were, because Mr. Amstell himself subsequently apologized on Twitter. Neil Phillips did not get off so lightly. During the final stages of the African leader’s slowly deteriorating health, Mr. Phillips, who runs the Crumbs sandwich shop in the English town of Rugeley, had gone online and complained: “My PC takes so long to shut down I’ve decided to call it Nelson Mandela.” The Staffordshire Constabulary arrested him, seized his computers, and, in the course of an eight-hour detention, fingerprinted and DNA-swabbed him.
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“There are no jokes in Islam,” Ayatollah Khomeini sternly warned, and that’s true even for its “moderate” redoubts, where Shez Cassim, a U.S. citizen from Minnesota, has languished in a Dubai jail cell since April for making a video mildly parodic of United Arab Emirates youth. But, as Mr. Phillips discovered, there are fewer jokes outside Islam, too. Once upon a time, it was the communist Eastern Europe that policed gags, as captured in Milan Kundera’s first great novel. Now even in free societies an infelicitous jest can lead to a rap sheet. In such a world, we should treasure the hilarity of the Mandela service. “Nelson Mandela stood for freedom,” his successor Jacob Zuma said. “He wanted everyone to be free.” Unfortunately, some of the crowd booed Zuma, so he’s now having them investigated for embarrassing him.
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Still, let’s take Zuma at his word: Mandela wanted everyone to be free. Free to sign-translate the U.N. secretary-general’s speech into total codswallop. Free to cop a feel from the Danish prime minister. And free, for all the loftiness of the forgettable rhetoric, to relish the low comedy all around it.
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©MARK STEYN

Sunday, December 29, 2013

THE DEMOCRAT NATIONAL COMMITTEE FORSEES THE POSSIBILITY OF OBAMA'S IMPEACHMENT

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DNC sends email defending Obama from impeachment possibility

7:11 PM 12/28/2013

Patrick Howley

Reporter

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) sent out a paranoid email Saturday evening urging supporters to vote for Democrats so that Republicans can’t impeach President Obama.
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The email, subject line “Impeachment,” was sent to Obama for America supporters, imploring them to contribute to the DNC’s 2014 efforts. “What do these people all have in common?,” the email asked, featuring quotes from Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Rep. Kerry Bentivolio of Michigan, and Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas discussing the possibility of impeaching Obama for one of his numerous instances of presidential misconduct.
The DNC email discussed the “I-Word” and said that “Republicans are actually excited about the idea.”
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“Show these Republicans that they are way, way off-base, and give President Obama a Congress that has his back,” according to the DNC email, noting that Democrats need to win 17 GOP House seats to reclaim a majority.
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The DNC, which recently expanded its political tactics to include boycotting independent news outlets, previously supported the last president to be impeached: Bill Clinton.
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Obama’s staff changed key talking points on the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack; his Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups during the 2012 election cycle; and Obama personally lied to the American people when he told them that they could keep their existing doctors and health insurance plans under Obamacare.
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Obama’s expansion of executive branch authority is “setting the stage for something very dangerous in the future” according to Republican Rep. Justin Amash.
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Friday, December 27, 2013

YOUR WRITER OF THIS BLOG WAS ONE OF THOSE SERVED IN THIS CANTEEN

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December 27th

The North Platte Canteen

The whole effort started by mistake. Several days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, people in North Platte, Nebraska, heard that their own Company D of the Nebraska National Guard would be passing through town on its way from an Arkansas training camp to the West Coast. A crowd gathered at the Union Pacific train station to greet the boys with cookies, candy, and small gifts. When the train arrived, it turned out it was transporting a Company D from Kansas, not Nebraska. After a moment of disappointment, someone in the crowd asked, “Well, what are we waiting for?” And they began handing their gifts to the war-bound soldiers.

The next day, Miss Rae Wilson wrote the North Platte Daily Bulletin to suggest that the town open a canteen to greet all troop trains stopping there. “Let’s do something and do it in a hurry!” she wrote.

Beginning on Christmas Day 1941 and continuing through World War II, the town offered itself as the North Platte Canteen. For 365 days a year, volunteers from the remote community of 12,000 and surrounding hamlets provided hot coffee, donuts, sandwiches, and encouragement for young soldiers passing through. Hundreds of families, churches, schools, businesses, and clubs pitched in to help raise money, buy supplies, and make food. They greeted every soldier on every train with gifts and good wishes. By April 1, 1946, its last day, the North Platte Canteen had served more than 6 million GIs.

“You don’t forget that when you’re overseas,” one veteran told Bob Greene, author of Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen. “There was no place I ever knew of, or ever heard about, that went to that great effort. A lot of people might be willing to do it. Or at least they might say they would be willing. But in North Platte, they did it.”

American History Parade




1941	The newly opened North Platte Canteen serves war-bound troops.

This content is courtesy of The American Patriot's Almanac

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

FOUR YEARS AGO TODAY AMERICA ENTERED THE TERMINAL PHASE OF ITS LIFE

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Contentions

This Day in Health-Care History

Rick Richman | @jpundit

12.24.2013 - 9:15 AM

Lest we forget: exactly four years ago today, Senate Democrats rammed through what would later be called ObamaCare, on a purely partisan vote, ignoring warnings it would be a BFD (big future disaster). On Thursday, December 24, 2009, the New York Times reported on the week:

The vote on Monday, in the dead of night, was 60 to 40. The vote on Tuesday, just after daybreak, was 60 to 39. And the vote on Wednesday afternoon, at a civil hour but after less-than-civil debate, was 60 to 39 again — an immutable tally that showed Democrats unwavering in the march to adopt a far-reaching overhaul of the health care system …
The health care legislation was approved Thursday morning, with the Senate divided on party lines — something that has not happened in modern times on so important a shift in domestic policy, or on major legislation of any kind, lawmakers and Congressional historians said. The Democrats flaunted their unity on Wednesday at a news conference with nearly their entire caucus in attendance.

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), 92 years old, had been pushed onto the Senate floor in a wheelchair, placing “no small burden on the frail nonagenarian” (unable even to deliver his customary Christmas address on the Senate floor); there was not a vote, nor a moment, to spare. The Times illustrated the action in the Senate “to reinvent the nation’s health care system” with three quotes from Democratic senators:

Hostility to the health insurance industry was a theme running through the Senate debate. Senator Sherrod Brown [D-Ohio], said insurance companies were often “just one step ahead of the sheriff.’’ Senator Dianne Feinstein [D-CA], said the industry “lacks a moral compass.’’ … Senator Sheldon Whitehouse [D-RI], said the business model of the health insurance industry deserved to die. “It deserves a stake through its cold and greedy heart,’’ Mr. Whitehouse said.

Shortly after 9 a.m., a pleased president praised the Senate and immediately left for his vacation in Hawaii. The bill had given him, he said, 95 percent of what he wanted. It had been only three and a half months since September 9, when the president had appeared before a joint session of Congress and a national TV audience to deliver an address that emphasized two things:

First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. (Applause.) Let me repeat this: Nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.

Second, the president extolled Congress on his new insurance exchange, where he said people would be able to shop “at competitive prices,” with tax credits for those who couldn’t afford them. And best of all:

This exchange will take effect in four years, which will give us time to do it right.

Topics: Barack Obama, Obamacare

Thursday, December 5, 2013

ROSA PARKS, MOTHER OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

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December 5th

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

“Don’t ride the bus to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday,” read leaflets that spread through the black community of Montgomery, Alabama, in early December 1955. “If you work, take a cab, or walk.”

An arrest had triggered the appeal. Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, was riding a crowded city bus home after a long day at work when the driver ordered her to give up her seat to a white man. Tired of being pushed around by segregation laws, Parks refused. The bus driver called the police, and Rosa Parks was arrested.

The city’s black leaders called for a boycott of city buses on Monday, December 5. No one was sure if the protest would have much support. Many blacks in Montgomery depended on the buses to get to work. But when Monday morning came, city buses followed their routes carrying only handfuls of white riders.

The boycott organizers, led by a young pastor named Martin Luther King Jr., decided to keep the boycott going. Black taxi drivers lowered their fares for protesters. People loaned cars to help get others to school, work, or the store. Many blacks simply walked wherever they needed to go.

Tension rose as the boycott dragged on. Police harassed black taxi drivers and carpool drivers. King’s home was bombed, but he and his family escaped harm. As news of the protest spread, support for the boycotters grew across the nation.

In November 1956 the Supreme Court struck down Alabama’s bus segregation laws as unconstitutional. On December 21, 1956—381 days after it started—the boycott came to an end. Rosa Parks was one of the first to ride the desegregated buses. For her courage she is remembered as the mother of the modern-day civil rights movement.

American History Parade

1782	Martin Van Buren, the eighth U.S. president, is born in Kinderhook, New York.
1831	Former president John Quincy Adams takes his seat in the U.S. House as a representative of Massachusetts.
1848	President James K. Polk helps trigger the 1849 Gold Rush when he confirms the discovery of gold in California.
1933	The Twenty-first Amendment, ending Prohibition, is ratified.
1955	Prompted by the arrest of Rosa Parks, the Montgomery bus boycott begins.

This content is courtesy of The American Patriot's Almanac